Old reference books are like tree rings. Without them, there'd be no way to know what a tree had lived through.

When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood NOT as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

Nineteenth-century grass-roots populism made twentieth-century progressivism possible.

The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesnt enter into it.

History is a long and endlessly interesting argument, where evidence is everything and storytelling is everything else.

Why do beautiful women love ugly men?

Mainly, the more faddish and newer stages of life are really just marketing schemes. Tweenhood. The young old. The quarter-life crisis.

Germ theory, which secularized infectious disease, had a side effect: it sacralized epidemiology.

Stages of life are artifacts. Adolescence is a useful contrivance, midlife is a moving target, senior citizens are an interest group, and tweenhood is just plain made up.

In kindergarten, you can learn how to be a citizen of the world.

Folklore used to be passed by word of mouth, from one generation to the next; thats what makes it folklore, as opposed to, say, history, which is written down and stored in an archive.

Your best - no matter how great - isnothing if you minus God from theequation.

Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

Madmen, criminals, and rapists! Isn’t it fantastic? All the romantic proposals I’ve ever got from anybody. Somebody up there has an extremely dark sense of humour.

My problems aren't big but it doesn't necessarily take a big problem to kill me.

Tennis is such an individual and competitive sport, but it is great being part of a team and getting to know the girls outside of tennis - even though we are all competing for the same thing!

He who fears is literally delivered to destruction.

Go to nature with no parti pris. You should not know what your picture is to look like until it is done. Just see the picture that is coming.

Decision has greater virtue and force if taken after there has been eloquent dissent.

What does it mean when your heart's already numb? You're a professional.